Why Making the Music Festival Drug Scene Safer Is So Hard

It's dusk at Mysteryland, a three-day EDM festival in upstate New York, and 28-year-old Kellye "Mohawk" Greene is racing against time. Having finally located her booth uphill from Steamboat Stage (which belches smoke from twin stacks along with an endless stream of bass-heavy music), she unloads boxes of earplugs, condoms, and rubber bracelets that read "Say 'Know' to Drugs." She sets out informational cards on substances ranging from nicotine to LSD, and hangs a neon yellow DanceSafe banner just as the grounds open.

With her signature mohawk and colorful plastic bracelets, Greene looks like many of the festival-goers. Unlike them, she's not here to play in interactive light domes and listen to Space Jesus and Diplo. As the volunteer head of the New York chapter of DanceSafe — a nonprofit with 14 regional chapters that provides drug and safety education in the rave scene — she's here hoping to save lives.

Electronic dance music (EDM) has exploded in recent years, with global revenue reaching $6.9 billion in 2015. Calvin Harris, EDM's top-earning DJ (and Taylor Swift's BF), netted $66 million last year alone. That revenue isn't coming from song downloads or album sales. Nearly 85 percent of EDM income in North America is generated from festivals and clubs, says a 2015 report from the International Music Summit. For fans, EDM isn't just about the music, it's about the moment. It's a sensory experience of music, lights, dancing, and often, drugs.

The dilated pupils and delirious smiles floating past the DanceSafe booth indicate that's the experience at Mysteryland. Users report that MDMA, aka molly or ecstasy — the drug of choice at many EDM events — promotes feelings of closeness and bliss. It can make lights look brighter or music sound better. "Molly makes you so incredibly aware of happiness," says Stephanie, 26. "It heightens my sense of touch to a level that's almost meditative."

It's also illegal and potentially dangerous.

Emergency room visits in which users reported taking LSD or MDMA more than doubled between 2004 and 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Last year, the issue made headlines when 11 Wesleyan University students were hospitalized after taking what they believed to be molly. The pills were later found to contain AB-Fubinaca, a synthetic cannabinoid with psychoactive properties, and 6-MAPB, a psychedelic "research chemical." Although all students survived, one had to be revived after his heart stopped.

The incident illustrates a pressing problem with molly today: People buying it have no idea what's in it. It could be pure MDMA … or it could contain caffeine, amphetamines, or a host of new synthetic analogues and research chemicals. Joseph Moses, a spokesperson for the DEA, says crackdowns on the chemical precursors used to make MDMA in the mid-2000s led to more experimentation with synthetic analogues. "These drugs are produced in labs in China, never meant for human consumption, and mislabeled as industrial solvent or rust inhibitor to be smuggled into the U.S.," he says.

When Beth, 28, bought molly from a dealer at an EDM party in Manhattan, she assumed she was getting pure MDMA. "It was during my wilder days, so I took two," she admits. The pills hit her hard and fast. "Instead of feeling fabulous and wanting to dance my ass off, I felt groggy and fuzzy, and I couldn't really move or talk. I sank into a cushioned chill-out area where a couple felt me up, kissed me, and pulled down my top." A friend found her before more happened, but Beth had trouble walking for hours afterward, and felt weak and depressed for days. She never found out what was in the pills.

DanceSafe is trying to prevent situations like Beth's. When permitted by event organizers, the group provides on-site pill testing. Attendees bring their pill or powder to the DanceSafe booth, scrape a small amount onto a ceramic plate, add a drop of a chemical reagent, and watch the colors change. Purple may indicate 6-APB, for instance, and light green signals PMA, which produces effects similar to MDMA but is toxic at much lower doses. The drug has caused enough fatalities to earn it the street name Dr. Death.

DanceSafe also sells testing kits at events and through its website. The site's safety tips include encouraging potential drug users to tell a friend, preferably one who's sober, every substance they ingest and how much. They also advise caution when dosing (for instance, try half a pill, then wait an hour to see its effects). DanceSafe believes that, armed with information, people can make better choices about what they put in their bodies.

At Mysteryland, it doesn't take long for attendees to ask about pill testing. Greene delivers the same news dozens of times: They can't do it. Mysteryland has asked them not to sell kits or perform on-site checking. Many other festivals haven't responded to the group's requests to set up a booth or have said they don't have space, says Missi Woolridge, DanceSafe's executive director.

Why would organizers shy away from providing tests that could help keep their customers from taking something toxic? "We can't allow drug testing based on the implications such services reflect on the event," says Brian Tamke, festival director of ID&T, which produces Mysteryland. The implication being that drug use is endorsed.

As Moses of the DEA notes, "pure" molly is not benign. The drug has a long list of negative effects, including nausea, chills, cramping, and blurred vision, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. An overdose can cause high blood pressure, panic attacks, and in severe cases, loss of consciousness and seizures. "You hear about hospitalizations and people say, 'That was just a bad batch of MDMA,'" he says. "There is no such thing as a good batch of MDMA."

In some cases, the festivals' insurance or legal advisers have prevented harm-reduction services from having a presence at events. In 2002, then-Senator Joe Biden introduced a bill known as the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act. It subjects any organization or individual seen as "maintaining a drug-involved premises" to fines up to $250,000. "Unfortunately," says Tamke, "the RAVE Act does weigh on our decisions about what services to provide."

Several festivals have instituted a zero-tolerance drug policy. Back in 2010, when a 15-year-old girl died after taking MDMA at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, the festival declared any use or possession of drugs would result in removal and prosecution and installed drug-drop amnesty boxes at entrances. In 2015, there were 76 felony arrests (nearly all for narcotics) over the course of the three-day event. Still, since instituting its zero-tolerance policy, the event has reportedly seen more than one drug-related fatality each year. Desiree Naranjo, spokesperson for Insomniac, which produces Electric Daisy Carnival, notes that "the tragic outcomes that can affect those who participate in illicit drug behavior extend far beyond any genre of music or any type of live experience." It's unfortunate that the media focuses on this while ignoring the scope of substance abuse and the need to improve education strategies, she adds.

Woolridge argues that education is exactly what her group is trying to do and that get-tough policies haven't eliminated drug use and abuse. "Our society is trained to think the only answer is zero tolerance," she says. "However, we've never had a completely drug-free society, and it's unrealistic to think that's attainable."

People say, 'That was just a bad batch of MDMA.' There is no such thing as a good batch of MDMA.

As the sun sinks behind the hills and Mysteryland's light shows paint the sky crimson and green, traffic at the DanceSafe booth slows to a trickle. "When we tell people we don't have test kits, most go, 'OK, well, never mind,'" Greene says. "Often, that doesn't mean 'Never mind, I'm not going to do drugs.' It means, 'Never mind, I'm just going to take this and see how it goes.'"

In 2013, Shelley Goldsmith, a 19-year-old student at the University of Virginia, died of heat stroke caused by a combination of ingesting MDMA and dancing for hours in a hot club. "Empathogens — drugs that make you feel good and energetic — can mask thirst or discomfort until it's too late," says Matthew Baggott, PhD, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "MDMA can also slow heat loss by constricting blood vessels in your arms and legs. When blood can't carry the heat to your surface, skin feels cold while core body temperature rises." Staying hydrated and taking breaks can mitigate the danger.

But Shelley Goldsmith didn't realize she was overheating until it was too late. Her friends report that "I need water" was the last thing she said before collapsing.

Her mother, Dede Goldsmith, has been working to amend the RAVE Act with the help of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine's office. "It prevents promoters and organizers from instituting safety measures," she says. "They feel like their hands are tied." The pair would like Congress to clarify the definition of "maintaining drug-involved premises" to exclude offering free water, chill-out spaces, crowd control, and harm-reduction services such as the ones DanceSafe provides.

The White House Office on National Drug Policy doesn't yet have a position on drug safety at EDM events. Goldsmith met with the office last fall in hopes of changing that. She doesn't encourage drug use, she says, but wants people to be informed should they take that gamble. "If Shelley had seen a DanceSafe booth and picked up one of those cute postcards on the risks of MDMA, she might have realized that she was running the risk of heat stroke," Goldsmith says. "She shouldn't have died."

This article was originally published as "Party On...Safely?" in the April 2016 issue of Cosmopolitan.

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